“Your Will Be Done” — Part Two

Now I invite you turn back to where we were this morning in Daniel chapter 8. And as you turn there, we’ll read from verse 15. We only read the first half of the chapter. We’ll read the second half now.

You know, as you’re turning to that, I think it’s only right for me to acknowledge that there is a sense in which there’s a disappointing element to our study here in these chapters in Daniel—disappointing in this sense: that in order to move through it as quickly as I want to, then certain things we don’t do justice to. I don’t want you to think that I’m just trying to skip pieces, but I determined when I would do the apocalyptic section of Daniel that I would not become embroiled in it or drag the congregation into an embroiling experience either. And so, perhaps on another occasion, if we’re spared, we’ll come back at it in more detail. That’s no promise. But for now, I think it’s just important to recognize that. If we were to go through this in particular detail, we would be here for a very long time, and I don’t think we would be well served.

Daniel 8:15:

“When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it. And behold, there stood before me one having the appearance of a man. And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of the Ulai, and it called, ‘Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.’ So he came near where I stood. And when he came, I was frightened and fell on my face. But he said to me, ‘Understand, O son of man, that the vision is for the time of the end.’

“And when he had spoken to me, I fell into a deep sleep with my face to the ground. But he touched me and made me stand up. He said, ‘Behold, I will make known to you what shall be at the latter end of the indignation, for it refers to the appointed time of the end. As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia. And the goat is the king of Greece. And the great horn between his eyes is the first king. As for the horn that was broken, in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not with his power. And at the latter end of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their limit, a king of bold face, one who understands riddles, shall arise. His power shall be great—but not by his own power; and he shall cause fearful destruction and shall succeed in what he does, and destroy mighty men and the people who are the saints. By his cunning he shall make deceit prosper under his hand, and in his own mind he shall become great. Without warning he shall destroy many. And he shall even rise up against the Prince of princes, and he shall be broken—but by no human hand. The vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true, but seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now.’

“And I, Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for some days. Then I rose and went about the king’s business, but I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it.”

Amen.

Heavenly Father, we pray once again for your help, the enabling of the Holy Spirit, that we might do justice to the text of Scripture—that nothing will be added that isn’t there and nothing will be excepted that is there to be said. Help us to this end, we pray. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Calvin, in commenting on the prophetic element of what we dealt with this morning and what we return to now, wrote as follows: “If nothing had been predicted, the pious”—that is, the people of God in this time era—

the pious would have glided gently downwards to despair in consequence of their heavy afflictions. … [And] if this had not been predicted, they would have thought themselves deceived by the splendid promises concerning their return. But when they perceived everything occurring according as they had been opportunely forewarned, [and] this became no slight solace in the midst of their woes.[1]

In other words, God in his grace and in his kindness provided this vision so that Daniel could record it—recording it, sealing it away, so that at the appropriate time, when people were turning to this material, they would understand that God was in control.

We left things largely at the beginning of verse 9, and therefore, we need to proceed apace. Out of the four kingdoms or the four horns “came a little horn, which grew exceedingly great toward[s] the south.” And it is this individual who is then described for us in the passage that we’ve just read. It is, of course, helpful that we have the interpretation, which we’ve just read. But, of course, we have to deal with our interpretation of the interpretation, and that’s where, of course, it gets a little daunting.

But you will see that in verse [25], this particular individual, this little horn, “by his cunning, he … make[s] deceit prosper under his hand, and in his own mind he shall become great.” And the conflict which is then described is no longer a conflict that takes place, if you like, on the human plane between one empire and another, but it is the conflict, if you like, between humanity and divinity. It is the conflict that lies at the heart of all conflict in the world, where man in his rebellion against God succumbs to the advances of the Evil One and seeks to fly in defiance of God.

And the animosity of this little horn, this individual, is focused directly on the people of God and in the place of God. You will notice that it says that his animosity extended even to the beautiful land, “toward the glorious land,” in verse 9—in other words, the place of God’s dwelling. God was going to take his people, remember, into a land flowing with milk and honey. It was the beautiful land, the land of God’s appointing. It’s referred in that way as the same in Ezekiel, for example, in chapter 20.[2] And so the animosity is directed to God’s place, and the animosity is directed towards God’s people.

Verse 10: “And some of the host and some of the stars it threw down to the ground and trampled on them.” These symbolic, poetic images need to be taken as they are. Some of you may remember from your childhood a song that we would sing as children: “All [the] jewels, precious jewels, his loved and his own,”[3] and the picture, again, of the children of God as jewels in a crown, the picture of God’s people as stars, the picture of God’s people as a vast host that is represented on earth. And the greatness of this individual, whom we’ve already identified as Antiochus Epiphanes—he became great; his mind extended even up into the highest heavens. And, as it were, he goes up to that realm and casts these people down. And there is nothing that is beyond his defiance. Verse 11: “It”—that is, this little horn—“became great, even as great as the Prince of the host,” a reference to God himself.

What does it mean? Well, it means that he deified himself. He had coins printed that had on them Theos Epiphanes, “God manifested.” And he identified himself amongst his people in his day as a very manifestation of God—not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but Zeus. “If you want to know what Zeus looks like,” he says, “if you want to know how powerful Zeus is, then simply look at me. Every coin you take out of your pocket points in this direction.” And the Prince of the host himself was challenged by this arrogant, blasphemous individual.

Incidentally, arrogant blasphemy is a mark of man’s opposition to God. When in comedy—such as it is, if we may refer to it as such—when in comedy and in politics, in the arts, in the arrogance of science, man exalts himself, he falls in line with the activity of this individual. And you will notice here that as he establishes himself, “the regular burnt offering was taken away.” In other words, he went into the temple (which history records), he stole the treasures of the temple, he forbad the Jews to conduct their worship, he built a pagan altar on the place of the altar of God—an altar to Zeus—and in the place where the Jewish people would offer the morning and evening sacrifices, he even brought in a pig to have it sacrificed on the altar of Zeus, to say to everybody involved, “This is what I think of your God, this is what I think of your worship, and I want to show you how strong and mighty I am.” And by making it impossible for the faithful priests to bring these morning and evening sacrifices, he took away the regular burnt offering.

Arrogant blasphemy is a mark of man’s opposition to God.

Now, this activity is recorded in the first book of Maccabees. Don’t go out and buy yourself one. Even on your computer, you’ll be able to get some help. But as you remember, the Maccabean Rebellion and Judas Maccabeus and the great “Hammer” of the opposition, as he was referred to. And in the book of Maccabees, this activity described here in these verses is the abomination of desolation. That’s how Judas Maccabeus recorded it. And in fact, you will remember, when we did Mark’s Gospel, that Jesus actually uses that very phrase, referring to “when you see the abomination of desolation.”[4] And on that occasion, we said to one another, “I wonder what that means?” And I’m not sure we ever really answered it properly.

Well, it doesn’t get any easier, and verse 12 is a difficult verse: “And a host will be given over to it together with the regular burnt offering because of transgression.” Now, is this the transgression of Antiochus Epiphanes and his hordes, or is this the transgression of the people of God? I’m going to take it that it’s the transgression of the people of God. You may do with it as you please. But it seems to make sense in this respect: that in Deuteronomy, God warned his people very, very clearly, “You must obey my law. You must do as I tell you. If you disobey my law and you go your own way, your disobedience will bring you into bondage, will bring you into captivity.” The people of God disobey his law, and they are brought into bondage—the bondage that is described for us in the opening chapters of Daniel, where they find themselves victims of the overthrow of the Babylonians. “Your enemies will be conquering over you when the Lord raises his hand against you.” That’s what he says in Deuteronomy.[5]

And so, the people of God, then, in the context of the return of the exile—if we just think about it for a moment—when they are given the privilege of going back to Jerusalem, they are then going to be confronted with an amazing choice. Because the activity that is described here, which will happen then, will make them decide, “Either I’m going to go with Antiochus Epiphanes and do what he says, or I’m going to oppose him, and I’m going to die. I’m going to die as a result of my commitment to God, to his law, and to his Word.” And once again, the record records that not a few of the Jewish people said to themselves, “Listen, what’s the big deal? There’s no problem about us compromising on a few things.” And as a result, they then broke the law of God, they despised his covenant, and they tried to settle down to the invasion of the world’s system represented there within the context of their own realm.

Now, just a slight aside here for a moment. In other words, the challenge that the people of God faced, having been torn out of Jerusalem and transplanted into a foreign world, was actually, in the end, easier to face than what they encountered being back in the apparent security of Jerusalem when the invasion took place right in there. We tend to think, of course, that the great challenge towards the people of God is the challenge that comes outward from the secular society impinging upon us and doing all these things. But in actual fact, the greater challenge that we face is a challenge that come to us internally. And their sorry predicament, as in chapter 9, in Daniel’s prayer, makes clear, was as a result of their sin. When we get to chapter 9, Daniel prays

to the Lord my God and I made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, we have sinned, done wrong, acted wickedly, turned, rebelled, turned aside from your commandments and your rules. We haven’t listened to your servants, the prophets. We are absolutely up the creek.”[6]

And the reason that they were in that predicament is described for us here.

The truth of God, then, is cast to the ground, his sanctuary is overthrown, and it is a picture here again of what Antiochus did. He went in, and he took the scrolls of the Torah, and he shredded them. He had his soldiers shred them and burn them. He said, “This is your law, and this is what you want to do? Let me show you what I’m going to do with that.” So he takes the Torah, and he destroys it in front of the people, and he sets it to fire. The truth of God is being trampled on the ground.

And the question inevitably arises—and Daniel has the opportunity to overhear a couple of holy ones having a conversation: “Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to the one who spoke…” It’s a bit like you’re out in the corridor here, and you heard one holy one speaking to another holy one. I don’t know if you’ve met any angels around the building lately. I’ve been looking for a few, but I haven’t. But Daniel’s ear is attuned to a conversation.

Incidentally and just in passing, it’s an indication, isn’t it, that the course of history is not fully comprehensible, even by the heavenly court. Even the angels—the angels don’t know everything. And so they’re asking one another, “How long do you think this is going to go on?” The angels actually don’t know quite a lot of things. Remember, in 1 Peter it says that—concerning Jesus when he comes, and the prophets are looking forward to it—and in 1 Peter 1, it says, “And even angels long to look into these things.”[7] And they look down, and they’re saying, “Wow! What’s going on here?”

And there’s a wonderful old song that one of our elders gave to me. He’s gone up to the realm of the angels now, himself, but—Jim Graham. It goes like this:

There is singing up in heaven
Such as we have never known,
[As] the angels sing [of victory]
[And] the Lamb upon the throne.

But when [we] sing redemption’s story,
They will fold their wings,
For angels never [knew] the [joy]
That our salvation brings.[8]

So, the angelic beings are having a conversation with one another, and they’re not discussing why it’s happening; they’re actually discussing how long it’s going to happen. It’s a bit like Psalm [13]: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?”[9]

And the answer that is given is the answer that Daniel himself was seeking. It’s interesting: they’re talking to one another, and then verse 14, it says, “And he said to me…” Of course, it was Daniel that needed the answer to the question. And here we go: “For 2,300 evenings and mornings. [And] then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state.”

How are we to understand “2,300 evenings and mornings”? Well, there are a number of ways that we can go at. Two are the largest possibilities. If the number refers to days (i.e., 2,300 days), then that comes out to approximately six years and four months, somewhere in the region of seven years—not quite seven years. Therefore, it would actually cover the entire period of Antiochus Epiphanes’s fiendish onslaught against the people. If it refers—because of the strange way it’s put—actually to the morning and the evening sacrifices… And I’m inclined to this view, although most people who are significantly brighter than me are not. So, that helps you, I think, to decide whether you want to go with me or not. But I’m inclined to the fact that there’s so much mentioned here of the sacrifices and the temple and them being depleted and everything, if it then refers to the morning and evening sacrifices, then 2,300 becomes 1,150 days; 1,150 days puts it in the realm of around three years, which would be the period of time of the abomination of desolation, the violation of the temple precincts by Antiochus and his soldiers. Because it was in BC 167 that he set up his altar to Zeus in the temple, and it was in 164 BC—three years later, approximately—the temple was cleansed and rededicated. And when the temple was cleansed and rededicated, the celebration of dedication was established, which we all know. It is Hanukkah. And it is here that you have the origin of Hanukkah. And it is this to which the writer of the Gospel makes reference at the beginning of John chapter 10 when he says that Jesus came into the temple at the time of the feast of the dedication.[10] What dedication? The rededication of the temple after the raid by Antiochus Epiphanes, after Judas Maccabeus had hammered him into oblivion. Okay?

Now, with that said, we’re only at verse 15. So, hurry up!

“When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it. And behold, there stood before me one having the appearance of a man. And I heard a man’s voice … call[ing] [out,] ‘Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.’”

Well, it’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it? This is God. He speaks to Gabriel, and Gabriel has the responsibility given to him. And I take it that this is our friend Gabriel, whom we know from elsewhere. You remember he went to Zechariah, and he said, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you.”[11] That’s in Luke chapter 1. Well, here he is. He’s been in the presence of God, and now he stands in front of Daniel in order to speak to him. And as a result of what he begins to say, even the encounter with him in verse 17, Daniel, “when he came … was frightened,” and he fell on his face.

Well, that’s not a very good start, is it? You want to know what’s going on, and you get the messenger sent to you, and then you just collapse in fearfulness. “But he said to me, ‘Understand, O son of man’”—all lowercase. Don’t get confused with the phrase “son of man.” It simply means “You’re a man. You’re not God. You’re nothing close to God.” “‘Understand, O son of man, that the vision is for the time of the end.’” And again, in verse 19: “‘Behold, I will make known to you what shall be at the latter end of the indignation, for it refers to the appointed time of the end.’”

Now, this is no time for falling asleep, and yet in verse 18, he fell into a deep sleep: “I fell into a deep sleep with my face to the ground.” Now, the reason for this is not because of the length of Gabriel’s message but the nature of Gabriel’s message, unlike what would be true for some of the rest of us.

Now, the whole thing really turns, doesn’t it, on this question of the end. As soon as people see the word “end,” they go immediately to the end, right? And all of a sudden, we’re at the end of the age, it’s the return of Jesus, and everything else. Of course, ultimately, the end is the end. But the question is: Is this the end to which this passage is referring? “I will make known to you what shall be at the latter end of the indignation.” That “indignation” is that abomination, that violation, that situation that has now been created within the temple of God.

So I take it that the angel is informing Daniel that God is going to intervene on behalf of his people and that this horn, which is so vicious and full of animus, is going to be broken, but not by human hand.

Now, it’s up for you folks to decide. You’re sensible people; you have to read the Bible for yourselves, right? It is common to read this reference to “the end” as referring to the end of the age at the return of Jesus Christ. If that is correct, then what this vision actually envisages is the time of the final Antichrist. This points to that time, but I don’t believe it refers to that time—that the end to which it’s referring concerns the destruction of Antiochus, which will be a foretaste of the final destruction of the Antichrist himself.

And the character sketch that is given of this man—verse 23 and on, “And at the latter end of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their limit”—here we have this description of this individual. And when you read the description (and we will do in a moment now), you find that this description could apply to more than one political leader from the history books of the world. Because these features that we now see are common in the kingdoms that are radically opposed to God’s Word and to God’s people.

Now, how then are we to understand what it means for Daniel to understand? What did it mean for Daniel to understand? Well, clearly, it couldn’t mean that he was able to see the future as though he was reading an advanced copy of a history book. Right? There’s no way that he could know about what would happen in four hundred years’ time in the fulfillment of this prophecy. So the understanding of Daniel surely means that he needs to understand what lies at the heart of all of this—that this actually will take place and that the actions that will be revealed and embodied finally in this character reveals something of the nature of endemic evil. He’s understanding that this conflict that is represented in all of these various elements is something that is so immense and so far-reaching that ultimately, the triumph over it is going to have to be something that reaches way beyond the proximity of his own time.

Now, if we were spending longer, we could unpack this in detail, but let’s just notice that we’re told that “at the latter end,” verse 23, there will be “a king of bold face” who shall arise. Now, again, we’ve identified this individual. The word that is used here for a “bold face” is the same word that is used to describe the brazen hussy in Proverbs chapter 7. I’m cleaning it up, because she’s a prostitute in chapter 7. That is the brazen boldness of animosity that is represented: insolent, arrogant, defiant, and skilled in intrigue. A man “who understands riddles.” A man who is skillful in double-talk. A man who is able to use his God-given intelligence for evil purposes.

And when you read 24 and 25: “His power shall be great—but not by his own power; and he shall cause fearful destruction …. By his cunning … deceit [shall] prosper.” So, you have destruction. You have deceit. “And in his own mind he shall become great.” You have the notion of delusions of grandeur and of self-deification. “And he shall even rise up against the Prince of princes.” He will stand in defiance of God himself. And all of this will not be “by his own power.”

Says my big brother, “Even for the breath it breathes to sin against God it is dependent upon the One against whom it sins.”[12] That’s one of those sentences again, isn’t it? It would be great if you could just have one. “Even for the breath it breathes to sin against God, it is dependent upon the one against whom it sins.” Man cannot lift his fist in defiance against Almighty God unless Almighty God gives him the strength to do so. What an amazing mystery!

Deceit prospers—verse 25. Deceit will always prosper in a context like this, because at the back of it is the great deceiver—namely, Satan himself. And deception and delusion and the exchanging of the truth of God for a lie[13] always will lie at the heart of these things. At the very beginning of creation, isn’t it the lie of the Evil One? And he says to Adam and Eve in the garden, “You don’t need to pay attention to that kind of stuff. You will be like God if you eat this stuff. That’s the only reason he doesn’t want you to do it. He wants to spoil your life. If he really wanted you to have a nice life, he’d let you do anything you want to do.”[14] That’s a lie! It’s the same lie that’s around in young people’s lives now: “If God was a good God, he’d let you do anything you want to do!” Like overdose on heroin? You just do whatever you want to do? Would that be a good God?

No! God says, “Listen, here’s the way. You can have all of this, and I made it for you so that your life will be fantastic. Leave this alone.”[15] And the Evil One comes and says, “Hey, you don’t have to leave that alone.” And so the roots of man’s rebellion and defiance against God are the same always, everywhere. And his arrogance as it is revealed here is that he is flying in the face of God: “By his cunning he [will] make deceit prosper … in his own mind he [will] become great. Without warning he[’ll] destroy many. … He [will] even rise up against the Prince of princes, and he [will] be broken—but by no human hand.”

The roots of man’s rebellion and defiance against God are the same always, everywhere.

Now, “the vision,” verse 26, “of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true, [so] seal [it] up … for it refers to many days from now.” What does that mean? Well, presumably, “Roll up this scroll, and put a paperclip on it—or, you know, put a seal on it—because this is important information, and it’s important information for a time not yet.” So the idea of sealing it up is not a notion of secrecy; it’s the notion of preservation. Because nearly four hundred years were going to elapse before these events that we’ve just been considering, before Antiochus Epiphanes is doing his thing. And in that period of time, the people of God would need this information. And so Daniel is told, “Make sure that you seal it up. Make sure that you preserve it.”

And Daniel went on local television and radio to tell about his great experiences, and he sold millions of books and became wonderfully wealthy and famous. No! He went to his bed. He was actually “overcome,” and he “lay sick for some days.” I guess seeing into the divine purposes must be quite devastating—to have God Almighty pull back a little curtain and show Daniel what’s there surely must bring him into some realm of divine sorrow in the face of man’s wickedness, and surely into some element of a compassion that is divine for the people who were going to experience this.

That’s why I’ve never understood these people who love to talk about how exciting it is that they’re all going to be taken away in the rapture, and everybody else can basically go fly a kite, you know? “Dear folks, sorry we’re gone. Have a good life.” You know? Does that sound to you a kind of divine response? It doesn’t to me. Daniel is given an insight into what will happen, and it puts him in his bed. It puts him on his face. It puts him on his knees. I think that’s the right response. And after he’d sorted himself out, he says, “Then I [a]rose and went about the king’s business, but I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it.”

You say, “Wait a minute! I thought you understood it.” Well, he didn’t understand the ultimate aspect of it as it is finally revealed. The prophecy was future to him; it’s history for us.

But let’s finish with this notion of arising and going about the king’s business. Because Monday comes, and we must arise and be about the king’s business.

You remember that wonderful story of Wesley, who’s riding somewhere in England, and he meets a stranger, and the stranger says to him, “Mr. Wesley, if you knew that Jesus Christ was going to return tomorrow, what would you do tomorrow?” And he went into the saddlebag of his horse, and he pulled out his diary or his calendar, and he opened it up, and he read for the following day’s activities that were planned and into the morning of the next day, and he said to the fellow, “That, dear sir, is what I would do.” In other words, business as usual.

God has set you where you live. God has given to you the privileges of employment. God has appointed your space and your place. And it is to that place, to our individual spot that each of us returns, to go back to the king’s business—alerted to the reality, to the drama of divine impact, but nevertheless, back to the routine. In Daniel’s case, back to serve Belshazzar. Not much of a job at that point in his life—hauled out of retirement in order to give the odd interpretation to a prophecy, but beyond that, nothing much happening. And as we go back to the king’s business, let’s do so in the awareness of the fact that the activity of the Evil One just is as predictable—I was going to say “as the weather,” but that’s no good—is predictable as the Browns losing. Sorry. Sorry. Did they lose today? I don’t even know. Oh, they did? I didn’t know. I didn’t know! I knew it was 10–0 after two quarters, but I didn’t know anything else. Okay.

And here it is. This is your takeaway, in verse 11: “And the regular burnt offering was taken away from him, and the place of his sanctuary was overthrown,” and truth was thrown to the ground. These three things are always present. Number one: the daily sacrifices were taken away. You say, “But wait a minute! We don’t do daily sacrifices. Daily sacrifices were part of the liturgy of Judaism. That was what they did under the Mosaic covenant. We don’t have the Mosaic covenant.” No, but the reason for those things was in order that the people of God might understand on a daily basis that sacrifice was necessary for fellowship with God. And the Evil One says, “I’m going to stamp on that. I’m going to get rid of that notion in their minds.” That’s exactly what he wants to do to you. He wants to suggest to you that the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ for your sin is really not that significant a deal, when in actual fact, your entire eternal destiny rests on it. And the Evil One comes in order to challenge us at that place.

So, you’re a fine religious person, you’re doing good deeds, and everything else, and he’s happy with a religion that is a crossless religion, that is a Christless religion, that is a religion that knows nothing of penal substitutionary atonement. His attack is always at the cross. Always at the cross. Beware of anyone who offers to you a crossless Christianity—an approach to the living of the Christian life that does not take you again and again back to the place that says, “My only hope, my righteousness, my sole defense, my righteousness is in Christ, today, tomorrow, and every day. It is tied entirely there.” And the Evil One wants to come and say, “No, it’s not. You don’t have to worry about that.” That’s the first thing.

The Evil One wants to suggest to you that the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ for your sin is really not that significant a deal, when in actual fact, your entire eternal destiny rests on it.

The second thing is that the place of the sanctuary was cast down. You say, “Well, we don’t believe in sanctuary.” That’s right. We don’t, actually. So it was the temple that was destroyed. What does the devil do? Destroys the temple! What is the temple? On an individual level, our individual bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.[16] He says, “You don’t have to worry about this or that, ‘Do this,’ ‘Do that.’ It doesn’t matter.” He’d be happy to destroy you. And it’s true that we are being joined together as living souls, built into a spiritual house—to a temple, as Peter says.[17] And the Evil One comes and says, “I’ll destroy the temple for them—by false teaching, or by disunity, or animosity, or lethargic, horrible worship.” And the people are just dead.

He attacks the place of sacrifice. He seeks to destroy the temple. And thirdly and finally, he seeks to cast truth down to the ground. Paul takes his leave of the Ephesian elders, and he says to them, “Listen, guys, when I leave, you need to be alert to the fact that false teachers will arise from among you.”[18] Loved ones, if Paul gave that warning to a church that he founded and spent three years grounding in the truth, don’t you think that’s a good warning for us to listen to—to recognize the real essential danger that is there? Because the activity of the Evil One is to cast the truth down into the ground. And he will do it in every possible way that he can.

“Well,” you say, “but the gates of hell will not prevail.”[19] I know that. But they’ll still push. They’ll still push. And ultimately, of course, Antiochus Epiphanes is an antetype of the Antichrist. And ultimately, this picture of animosity—embodied evil, if you like—will be fulfilled in “the man of lawlessness,”[20] as we said when we finished last time, in 2 Thessalonians 2.

But the challenge to us is a straightforward one. It’s the challenge that was the challenge to the people when they found themselves back in Jerusalem—the challenge that runs the whole way through the Bible: “Choose you this day,” Joshua says, “whom [you] will serve.”[21] “You can serve the gods on the far side of the river, or you can serve the living God. But you’re going to serve somebody.”[22] Actually, Bob Dylan said that, but so did Joshua, kind of. It’s the same today.

Who is on the Lord’s side?
Who will serve the King?
Who will be his [helper],
Other lives to bring?
Who will leave the world’s side?
[And] who will face the foe?
[And] who is on the Lord’s side?
[And] who for him will go?[23]

Let’s have the Daniels, the Shadrach, the Meshachs, and the Abednegos stand forward in our generation. Let’s have young men and young women laying hold of the precious gift of Jesus in his death on the cross, making their commitment to the people of God—wherever it is and whatever it means—and anchoring themselves to the truth of God’s Word as provided for us in the Bible.

Next time, we’ll try chapter 9.

Let us pray:

Father, thank you that the Bible is not just some trivial little piece of material. Thank you that it’s not silly stuff. Thank you that it doesn’t all fit so perfectly with our puny minds that we could just say, “Yeah, we’ve got it, we’ve got it, we’ve got it,” but thank you that it reminds us again that you are God and we are mere men and women—that Daniel, he desperately needed to understand, he longed to know. He got an insight. He didn’t get it all. He got the grasp of it but not all the details. We don’t get it all either. Now we see through a glass darkly; one day we’ll see face to face. Now we know in part. [24] We prophecy in part. We understand.

And so we pray that you will help us to be good students but, at the same time, to be submissive learners. We thank you that the Word of God is fixed in the heavens,[25] that it is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.[26] We thank you that it can be trusted. And we pray that you will help us to trust it more and more, especially as the prevailing drift runs so counter to the things that your Word affirms. Help us, Lord, to this end, we pray. Come and abide with us as a church. Help us to triumph and to live to your glory. And write your Word on our hearts, we pray. For Christ’s sake. Amen.

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[1] John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Daniel, trans. Thomas Myers (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1853), 2:95–96.

[2] See Ezekiel 20:6.

[3] William O. Cushing, “Jewels” (1856).

[4] Mark 13:14 (ESV).

[5] See Deuteronomy 28:25.

[6] Daniel 9:4–6 (paraphrased).

[7] 1 Peter 1:12 (paraphrased).

[8] Johnson Oatman Jr., “The Song of Redemption” (1894).

[9] Psalm 13:1 (ESV).

[10] See John 10:22–23.

[11] Luke 1:19 (ESV).

[12] Sinclair B. Ferguson, Daniel, The Preacher’s Commentary 21 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2002), 164.

[13] See Romans 1:25.

[14] Genesis 3:4–5 (paraphrased).

[15] Genesis 2:16–17 (paraphrased).

[16] See 1 Corinthians 6:19.

[17] See 1 Peter 2:5.

[18] Acts 20:29–30 (paraphrased).

[19] See Matthew 16:18.

[20] 2 Thessalonians 2:3 (ESV).

[21] Joshua 24:15 (KJV).

[22] Joshua 24:15 (paraphrased).

[23] Frances R. Havergal, “Who Is on the Lord’s Side?” (1877).

[24] See 1 Corinthians 13:12.

[25] See Psalm 119:89.

[26] See Psalm 119:105.